Will Sanders out for Arkansas series with lower body injury

The pitching injuries continued for South Carolina baseball as the team drives down the stretch. Already down Saturday starter Noah Hall, the team's regular Friday starter Will Sanders will not pitch this weekend at Arkansas with a "slight lower body injury" according to Mark Kingston.

Sanders has started 11 games for the Gamecocks this season with a 5.75 ERA, the highest ERA of his career, and is another hit to South Carolina's worrying depth situation. In addition to Hall the Gamecocks are also down regular reliever Eli Jerzembeck, who Kingston confirmed will not make the trip to Fayetteville, and are still fighting through the same infield injury issues that have plauged the team since March.

"I don't want to give too much information," Kingston said about Sanders. "But I would say slightly lingering. It's very minor, but it's just something that he wants to work through, and we're going to be very smart with him on it."

The injury has forced Kingston to shuffle the deck on his weekend rotation yet again, this time with all three of the team's opening weekend starters not scheduled to make a start against the Razorbacks. Kingston confirmed that Eli Jones will make his second SEC start of the sesaon in the Friday game and that Matthew Becker will stay in his Sunday role, but said they still are not sure what the plan will be for Saturday's game.

Regular game two starter Jack Mahoney is being saved as a "swing man" according to Kingston, hoping to maximize his value in relief of Jones on Friday while not completely ruling out the possibility he could start Saturday.

Game one of the series is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. ET first pitch Friday, with live coverage on SEC Network Plus.

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